Dry mouth, also known as xerostomia, is the medical term for the subjective complaint of having a dry mouth or lack of saliva. Dry mouth can lead to problems of tooth decay, the ability to swallow, and the ability to taste and digest food, among other things. Physicians and dentists continue to seek diagnostic devices and methods for determining or assessing the condition of xerostomia or dry mouth by measuring a saliva flow rate produced by the glands in the mouth. The apparent most widely used method for determining saliva flow rate within a patient is by conducting a drool test. For example, the drool test is implemented with a drool cup, in which a patient leans over the cup with his or her head tilted forward and the mouth open to allow drool produced by the saliva glands to flow over the bottom lip and into the drool cup. Such test is typically timed over a five or ten minute time period. At the end of the time period, a saliva flow rate may be determined by the amount of saliva collected into the drool cup relative to the time period taken to collect the saliva. This known method for determining saliva flow rate for a given person has often been found to be inaccurate due to the difficulty in conducting the test and the close supervision and patient compliance required. Further, the drool test is inefficient since the typical time frame just to collect the saliva sample is five to ten minutes. Furthermore, from a patient's standpoint, drooling into a cup is degrading, humiliating, cumbersome and uncomfortable, especially when conducted with staff, doctors and/or family members present.
Based on the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a device, system and/or method that substantially overcomes the above-noted limitations for determining a patient's saliva flow rate and related data.